Photo, left:  Pacific Rim.
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-hosts: Mary Kissel, Wall Street Journal editorial board & host of OpinionJournal.com.  Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents.
Hour One
Thursday  25 June 2015 / Hour 1, Block A: Mary Kissel, Wall Street Journal editorial board & host of OpinionJournal.com; in re:   careful discussion of King v Burwell ruling by SCOTUS.  James Freeman and Bobby Jindal: education and health-care sector.
Thursday  25 June 2015 / Hour 1, Block B:  Edward W Hayes, criminal defense attorney par excellence, in re: On Tuesday at 11:30 in the morning, a South Korean tourist who'd just finished a yoga class and was sitting on a bench in Bryant Park at the main library: a madman came up and hacked at her arm with machete!  This is the breakdown of the social order: fewer cops, more people do things like this. With a more aggressive police dept, there'd be three or four cops patrolling the park. So DeBlasio backs down and accepts an additional 1,300 cops. It'll take 6 mos to a year to train them; cops must be more aggressive till then. Huge numbers of people sleeping on sidewalks, incl in the midst of main downtown.  DeBlasio has decreed, "Don't be aggressive" – so cops can’t even say, "Move on." On Madison in the Fifties, overt junkies sleeping on hte corner of 57th and Madison, Disgraceful.
De Blasio's decision to add 1,300 cops came after being swayed by Commissioner Bratton's vision for NYPD: sources ; Bratton to Reveal More Details on NYPD Expansion ; Police Commissioner Bill Bratton will unveil more details of his new plan Wednesday on ... ; NYPD Commissioner William Bratton is happy with "good news budget" ; De Blasio's decision to add 1300 cops came after being swayed by Commissioner Bratton's vision for NYPD: sources
Thursday  25 June 2015 / Hour 1, Block C:  Patrick Chovanec, chief strategist at Silvercrest Asset Management, in re:  A huge stock-market bubble in China. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/06/24/meet-the-worlds-biggest-stock-market-bubble-since-the-dot-com-boom/
Thursday  25 June 2015 / Hour 1, Block D:  Avik Roy, Manhattan Institute, in re: King v Burwell, the high court; judiciary and legislature.
Hour Two
Thursday  25 June 2015 / Hour 2, Block A: Ambassador Dennis Ross, Washington Institute for Near East Policy; in re:  http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/public-statement-on-u.s.-policy-toward-the-iran-nuclear-negotiations  ;  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/world/middleeast/former-advisers-caution-obama-on-iran-nuclear-talks.html  ;  http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/dont-let-the-deadline-drive-the-deal
Thursday  25 June 2015 / Hour 2, Block B:  Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re: letter concerning the intended deal with Iran. Monitoring, centrifuges, requirements.  A year ago, the break-out was to  be a year; now it's down to two or three months.  Dismantlement of infrastructure is highly applicable here.  Fordo and Natanz are allowed to remain as is.  Allow R&D on more centrifuges (so can enrich much aster); capacity will be three times as great as Pres Obama avers.  Iran carefully refuses to allow IAEA inspectors in.  Four days are left. Kerry, Fabius and Zarif will met on Friday.
Thursday  25 June 2015 / Hour 2, Block C: Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re: Iran deal – unknowns in these last hours.  Active war zone: Golan Height, Druze (monotheistic, Abrahamic)) , one of he many Middle Easern minor and buffer religions which have held the region together for a thousand years n the midst of the Sunni-Shia conflict. About 1.5 million Druze I Lebanon. Syria, Jordan, Israel.   Ambulance went to help wounded Syrians – al Nusrah – and Druze people attacked – and killed someone in - the ambulance out of rage at al Nusrah.  Druze need protection in Lebanon but dasn't send troops across the border. The protest was against various Syrian groups, rebel and govt.  Israel treats wounded people by the many hundreds, including children caught in crossfire. Israel did issue a statement saying that Druze need be left safe, but has limits to what it can accomplish. Imagine internecine warfare over who succeeds Assad.  Meanwhile, Abbas pursues Israel ion war crime " charges at a moment when the PA s a great deal more likely to be condemned by the ICC, for using civilians as shields , for many actually illegal war crimes This relates to Abbas's problem – he can’t go to Gaza; his own Party is in turmoil, he accused Fayyad of money-laundering in order to lay low Fayyad's political prospects.  ISIS  is in open fight with Hamas, which is intimidated.  Inherit title, plus the money from Iran. ISIS today issued statements attacking Christians in Jerusalem; another 43 Yazidi women sold into (sexual) slavery.   BDS: Europeans [generate it]; some allies oppose BDS.
Thursday  25 June 2015 / Hour 2, Block D: Michael Oren, American-born Israeli historian, author, politician, & former ambassador to the United States; in re: US-Israeli relations. Almost all reviews of my book have been ad hominem; I've been called a liar, a money-grubber, a politician. Almost no one has addressed the substance of the book. Pres Obama has been most candid about his concern for Palestinians and his wish to put out a hand of friendship to the Muslim world. Recall strained relations between Eisenhower and Ben Gurion, and other presidents. Many "kerfuffles," but never before as deep and consistent as in the last six years. Historically, we’ve held to "no daylight" and "no surprises" between US and Israeli positions, anyway not in public.  Pres Obama has abandoned those unwritten policies, incl in his Cairo speech, of which Israel had zero advance warning.   Another speech on 1967 borders, which Pres Obama accepted without notice.   
http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-obama-abandoned-israel-1434409772  ;  http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/06/19/barack-obama-muslim-world-outreach-c... ; http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/06/19/barack-obama-muslim-world-outreach-c... ; http://www.algemeiner.com/2015/06/21/former-israeli-envoy-oren-says-like... ; http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-oren-iran-is-not-a-rational-s... ;  http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/06/22/michael-oren-israeli-ambassador-ally... ;  http://www.algemeiner.com/2015/06/24/former-ambassador-oren-obama-policy...
Oren, Michael B. Ally: My Journey across the American-Israeli Divide. New York: Penguin Random House LLC, 2015. Print.
Hour Three
Thursday  25 June 2015 / Hour 3, Block A:  Daniel Henninger, WSJ editorial board, in re: A Bush vs. a Clinton?  A tale of two dynasties in American politics.  http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-114_qol1.pdf
Thursday  25 June 2015 / Hour 3, Block B: Robert Graboyes, health care economist at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, in re:  King v. Burwell is over.  rather than discuss endlessly health-care payments let's focus on the quality of health care.  . . . Our policies date from 1910 – every physician is thought to be a small-town GP.  Preventing new modes of care from taking place – as is occurring I India and sub-Saharan Africa right now, but we in the US slow the process down so much! Island-hopping: look for the opportunities. Go after a thousand little problems in the system – every state, every federal dept, has its own little problems. Fix healthcare?  That's like asking, How would you fix transportation?  Can’t even quite grasp the question. Look to 1990s when we changed the whole face of communications – bipartisan work on information technology, which has now [transformed] the world.   When you spend your whole time trying to anticipate and fix bad things, you assure that  good things can never happen.
The Court has ruled for the defendants (Burwell), and from a rule of law perspective, that's an unfortunate outcome. But as for the fundamental dynamics of U.S. health care, the case was never going to change much. Since World War II, Left and Right have fought bitterly—and almost exclusively—over how to divide up existing health care resources through health insurance coverage. Both sides have obstructed the development of newer, better, and less expensive modes of care—technologies that can bring better health to more people at lower costs, year after year. (For a fuller explanation, see, "Fortress and Frontier in American Health Care")
Thursday  25 June 2015 / Hour 3, Block C: Simon Deng, Sudanese human rights activist, in re: the chaos of internal strife in the brand-new state of South Sudan. 
Thursday  25 June 2015 / Hour 3, Block D:  Francis Rose, Federal News Radio, in re: Chairman Miller Statement Ahead of VA Budget Hearing
Today, Chairman Miller released the following statement ahead of the hearing “The State of VA’s Fiscal Year 2015 Budget” to take place this Thursday, June 25, 2015 at 10:30 a.m. in room 334 of the Cannon House Office Building.
                                 
“VA’s continued lack of transparency and refusal to be forthright with Congress is unacceptable. It was not until I called a hearing in response to warnings from the field about the budget that VA admitted to a $2.6 billion shortfall. Secretary McDonald has testified 4 times within nearly as many months about VA’s budget, without ever mentioning a shortfall of this magnitude. Less than 3 weeks ago, VA came to Congress asking to remove $534 million from medical care to pay for the largest construction failure in VA history. Talking around the facts and alluding to the need for budget flexibility without justification or supporting data has become an all too familiar practice at VA. I look forward to discussing with Deputy Secretary Gibson how such a massive shortfall could have come as a surprise to the department, and how to put an end to these frequent cost overruns while ensuring veterans receive the care they have earned.” -- Rep. Jeff Miller, Chairman, House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs
 
The following event is open to the press:
WHO:       House Committee on Veterans' Affairs
WHAT:    “The State of VA’s Fiscal Year 2015 Budget”
WHEN:    10:30 a.m. ET, June 25, 2015
WHERE:  334 Cannon House Office Building and streaming at veterans.house.gov
 
WITNESS LIST
 
The Honorable Sloan Gibson
Deputy Secretary
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
 
Accompanied by:
 
James Tuchschmidt MD
Interim Principal Deputy Under Secretary for Health
Veterans Health Administration
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
 
Edward Murray
Acting Assistant Secretary for Management and Interim Chief Financial Officer
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
 
Gregory Giddens
Principal Executive Director
Office of Acquisitions, Logistics, and Construction
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
 
Hour Four
Thursday  25 June 2015 / Hour 4, Block A: Bruce Allen Murphy, Scalia: A Court of One. ‘SCOTUScare’   Just what is the justices's job? (1 of 4)
Thursday  25 June 2015 / Hour 4, Block B: Bruce Allen Murphy, Scalia: A Court of One. (2 of 4)
Thursday  25 June 2015 / Hour 4, Block C: Bruce Allen Murphy, Scalia: A Court of One. (3 of 4)
Thursday  25 June 2015 / Hour 4, Block D: Bruce Allen Murphy, Scalia: A Court of One. (4 of 4)
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